MANHATTAN (CN) — As two investigations into the former president's business dealing appear to be closing in, Donald Trump faces a new legal challenge from his longtime ex-attorney.
Michael Cohen filed suit Thursday against Trump, former Attorney General William Barr, and federal prison officials for putting a gag order on him and sending him back to jail after Cohen criticized Trump and promoted his tell-all book while under home confinement.
Cohen, who pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and campaign violations at Trump’s direction, had served one-third of his three-year sentence at Federal Correctional Institution, Otisville, in Orange County, New York when he was transferred to home confinement. In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Federal Bureau of Prisons determined Cohen was at high risk for serious illness and death from the novel virus.
No longer in prison, Cohen took to social media in June and July of 2020 to plug his upcoming book about working with Trump. Just a week after he used the hashtag #WillSpeakSoon, the former attorney was hit with a gag order banning him from speaking to the media or posting on social media.
“The purpose is to avoid glamorizing or bringing publicity to your status as a sentenced inmate serving a custodial term in the community,” the order announced, according to the 31-page complaint in the Southern District of New York.
Cohen asked for clarification from the Federal Location Monitoring Program, and, after an hour and a half in the agency’s waiting room, three U.S. marshals came in with an order to remand Cohen on the basis that he had failed to agree to the terms of his location monitoring.
Cohen spent the next 16 days in solitary confinement back at Otisville before U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein granted him a preliminary injunction, agreeing that the incarceration was retaliatory.
"How can I take any other inference other than it was retaliatory?” Hellerstein asked at a July 2020 hearing, summarizing the terms of the government’s home-confinement agreement as telling Cohen: “You toe the line about giving up your First Amendment rights or we'll send you to jail."
“I’ve never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge,” the Clinton appointee added.
In addition to retaliation, Cohen's complaint alleges false arrest and imprisonment, negligent failure to protect, and both negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Cohen is represented by New York-based attorneys Jeffrey Levine and Andrew Laufer.
“It’s just apparent what happened here. This is political retribution,” Laufer told Courthouse News. “They violated my client's First Amendment rights by retaliating against him, and we intend on seeking compensation for it.”
The complaint outlines a history of retaliation during Trump’s presidency, including a June 2020 lawsuit against former national security adviser John Bolton to stop him from publishing a memoir.
“This is just part and parcel to what the Trump administration represented,” Laufer said. “They stomped on people’s rights, they retaliated against those who fell out of favor, and they just ignored the Constitution and the law. And we intend on having them answer for that.”
The Department of Justice declined to comment for this story. An attorney for Trump did not respond before publication.
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